About to Take Center Stage: Project Gunrunner!

A story that Gun Owners of America has been following over the past several months is ready to explode next week in the news.

If you have been reading our newsletter, The Gun Owners, or watching our videos on the GOA website, you know what Project Gunrunner is all about. It refers to an operation where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives (ATF) was working with gun shops, approving firearms purchases to buyers who were suspected smugglers.

While this scandalous activity remained hidden for some time, it really went viral in the news media after one of the guns sold to a smuggler was later used to murder Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December.

Since then, GOA has been lobbying the Congress to hold Congressional hearings to investigate the corruption in the Obama administration, specifically in relation to Project Gunrunner. GOA has corresponded with President Obama on this issue and has asked it members several times to urge their legislators to call for hearings themselves.

Well, there is good news to report. Beginning next week, the House of Representatives is set to commence hearings into Project Gunrunner — which also goes by the names of Project Gunwalker or Fast and Furious.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is the point man leading the investigation on the House side. His hearings are sure to reveal much new information, but even so, he has already discovered quite a bit.

Project Gunrunner “was authorized at the highest level,” Issa told a radio audience this past Tuesday. “This decision was made at least by people in the Office of Attorney General Holder.”

This underscores the tremendous hypocrisy and antagonism against gun owners on part of the Obama Administration. After all, officials (like the President) were blaming American gun stores for letting firearms slip into gun smugglers’ hands and, thus, fueling much of Mexico’s violence.

But all the while, the administration was quietly approving the sales of those firearms to those very same gun smugglers.

“[The ATF] apparently did this,” said GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt in his letter to the President, “in part, so it could push gun control in Congress by demonstrating that guns used in Mexican violence came from the United States.”

ACTION: Please urge your Representative to closely follow the upcoming hearings into Project Gunrunner. Tell them that it is unconscionable for Congress to be funding a program that allows the Obama Administration: